Current microscopes do not allow for manufacturers or users to customize the microscope system to the exact needs of the user. Most low cost solutions incorporate a housing or structural backbone onto which the components of the microscope are permanently built. In such microscopes, manufacturing and, consequently, purchasing customized microscopes can be extremely expensive. Once the custom microscope is manufactured according to contemporary designs and methods, changing or adding to the configuration of the custom microscope is often prohibitively expensive and impractical. As such, most current microscopes, if customized at all, are purchased and used for a single application.
In addition, digital microscopes currently on the market have no way to control how users use the digital microscope or the images produced by the digital microscope. Such limitations prevent manufacturers from customizing low cost off-the-shelf turnkey digital microscopes and controlling how the digital microscopes are used by a client computer or other computing device or subsequently protecting the images captured using the digital microscope. Additionally, manufacturers and users alike have no automatic way of coupling digital rights management to the images produced with their digital microscopes. As such manufacturers have no way to encourage or force users to purchase and use software and hardware in combinations intended by the manufacturer or seller.
Embodiments of the present invention address these and other deficiencies.